The present invention relates to surgical devices in general and, more particularly, to devices for supporting surgical instruments during a surgical operation.
When a surgeon performs an operation, it is often necessary to have a number of instruments, such as hemostats, retractors or forceps, supported adjacent the patient, and assistants or supporting devices can be used to maintain the instruments stationary. Thus, there are known instrument holding devices which can be set to perform the functions such as holding a retractor in a fixed position during an operation, or supporting electrical devices which may be employed during the operation. Some of these devices are adjustable and can support one or more instruments.
An instrument holding device, like the instruments themselves, must be stored between uses. Because of its proximity to the surgeon and patient during an operation, the instrument holding device should be as sterile as possible, for once a surgeon has sterilized for an operation, contact with an unsterile object may break the sterile field. Depending on where, and how, the instrument holding device is stored, the sterilization procedure can be quite complicated.
Furthermore, some surgeons, such as veterinary surgeons, may employ instrument holding devices quite often. It is therefore desirable to store the holding device in an assembled condition and in a convenient and accessible location.
However, because of the cooperation and configuration of the elements and members used to construct the known instrument holding devices, many must be disassembled for storage between uses. Some of the known devices need not be disassembled for storage, but these are often bulky and too large to be stored in areas where sterile conditions are maintained, and thus may not remain sterile during storage. Therefore, known devices, whether of the type which is stored in a knockdown condition, or of the type which is stored in the assembled condition, have the disadvantage of being inconvenient to store or have the disadvantage of requiring special assembly procedures to place them in a usable condition. Since it is undesirable to assemble or move such devices from a storage area after the operating room has been sterilized, operating room sterilization procedures must account for the instrument holding device and thus become that much more involved.